Flooding avoided along Kankakee River

Large ice chunks raised fears, but a water siphon system and warming weather averted disaster

March 22, 2014|By Angie Leventis Lourgos, Tribune reporter

( Photo courtesy of George Lindemulder, Kankakee River)

Monstrous chunks of ice — some the size of a car — threatened to damage or flood homes along the banks of the Kankakee River, but emergency officials say a water siphon system and the recent gradually warmer weather prevented the river from wreaking havoc.

Prolonged freezing temperatures with few warm days in January and February turned the Kankakee into sheets of ice as thick as 30 inches in some sections. As temperatures rose, runoff from melting snow broke up the ice into giant chunks that could have jammed and the river and prompted flooding.

Emergency crews, homeowners and local historians all watched the ice floes nervously, recalling that the same conditions led to disaster in 1985: The river swelled and hurled 10-foot-high blocks of ice over its shores in Will and Grundy counties. At least one house was knocked off its foundation. Many others were damaged. Flooding prevented authorities from rescuing a 82-year-old man, who escaped to the roof of his home near Morris and was found dead the next morning.

"When you live and work on the river, you expect nature and flooding, but we never expected a glacier in Illinois," one property owner in the Wilmington area told the Tribune in 1985.

Then in 1986 the Army Corps of Engineers built a siphon system that pipes water from a local nuclear power plant's cooling lake into the river. The warmer water helps to slowly break apart the clumps of ice so they're less likely to jam the river, said Harold Damron, emergency management director for Will County. Officials used the siphon for an extended period in February and earlier this month.

March weather patterns helped prevent calamity as well. A few days of warmer weather followed by a few colder days caused the ice to melt slowly, Damron said. And there wasn't enough rainfall or snow to raise the river to a point of concern. While ice buildup closed a local bridge for three weeks, officials say that was more of a precautionary measure.

"Mother Nature cooperated," said Tony Graff, city administrator in Wilmington. "With the gradual warm-up and no heavy rain, the ice slowly broke up without a lot of impact to us."